Low F-scale scores could equally describe Communists who submit to their own authorities

Evidence

In a sense, Rokeach’s theory had its origins in a penetrating criticism of The Authoritarian Personality by Shils (1954). The Berkeley researchers, Shils observed, seemed to believe that people who scored low on the F Scale would be “complete democrats.” Presumably, democrats would score low ona valid measure of prefascist personality. However, so too would Communists, who also strongly opposed fascism. But Communists submitted to their own authorities and were not “‘complete democrats” by any stretch of the imagination. So Shils proposed that an authoritarian also anchors the left end of the political spectrum, counterbalancing the one on the right. — Bob Altemeyer, The Authoritarian Specter, 2529

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to vault claims about authoritarianism and the left-right spectrum; qualifies the idea that mere rejection of right-wing authority indicates democratic character.